Wireless access

[JeffM]

I've read so many different solutions to wireless in church my head is spinning. We have a wired network throughout the building and we will keep it private. They want to add a visitor/coffee shop in part of the church and have wifi. This has to be separate from the rest of the church network. I've hear of the Apple Airport but not sure which one or how it's configured. Currently it's a DSL modem to a 16 port dumb hub. Can we simply run CAT5 to the area we want wifi and use the Airport to segregate the network?

Thanks.

[petereit]

I would recommend an Apple Airport Extreme. It will allow your church employees secure wireless access to the church's private network, while simultaneously presenting a separate open guest-network for internet access. And I love how the Airport utility steps you through the setup process. I don't know anything about networking protocols but I was able to set up our Airport Extreme with secure access for our church employees and free access for everyone else in about 5 minutes.

It's been running for three years now maintenance-free.

[JeffM]

Originally Posted by petereit

I would recommend an Apple Airport Extreme. It will allow your church employees secure wireless access to the church's private network, while simultaneously presenting a separate open guest-network for internet access. And I love how the Airport utility steps you through the setup process. I don't know anything about networking protocols but I was able to set up our Airport Extreme with secure access for our church employees and free access for everyone else in about 5 minutes.

It's been running for three years now maintenance-free.

We are using a DSL modem/router. How does it play in this environment? I just want to use the Extreme for isolated wireless from the rest of our network. I assume it would take care of DHCP for the guest side of the network/

[prochlea]

To use the Airport Extreme for a secure and guest wifi network, you have to use the router functions built into it. It would work fine with a DSL modem/router unless you need to access the network remotely. it would work better to get a standalone dsl modem and take the WAN output of that directly to the Airport Extreme. It essentially sets up two different DCHP assignments... likely your internal network will be a 10.0.1.x environment, and the guest will be 192.168.1.x environment.

[JeffM]

Originally Posted by prochlea

To use the Airport Extreme for a secure and guest wifi network, you have to use the router functions built into it. It would work fine with a DSL modem/router unless you need to access the network remotely. it would work better to get a standalone dsl modem and take the WAN output of that directly to the Airport Extreme. It essentially sets up two different DCHP assignments... likely your internal network will be a 10.0.1.x environment, and the guest will be 192.168.1.x environment.

I was hoping to just jump on the existing since the modem is physically too far to the location we need guest wifi.

[prochlea]

well - as long as you have an ethernet jack at the location where you want the guest wifi (and you don't need to have the internal network accessible) - you could just plug a regular wifi router into that jack, and set up your guest network on a different ip address scheme.

[petereit]

The Airport Extreme is a dual-zone wireless access point which would provide secure wireless access to your church's private network (for your church employees) as well as providing open public wireless access to the internet (for everyone else). You would just plug it into your existing wired network hub, plug in power, run the Airport utility and go.

[andrewf]

Peter, are you sure the Airpot Extreme supports multiple SSID? I know it supports the same SSID on both 2.4 and 5 GHZ, but that is not the same as multiple SSID and keeping traffic on the two separate.

Simply plugging the AE into your private network and making a guest SSID wont secure the guest traffic from the rest of your network.

one really needs a core device (router/firewall/modem) that supports multiple internal network segments or vlans, to pull this off.

[petereit]

Yes, it supports multiple SSIDs, and yes it segregates traffic between the secure and open sides to keep your internal network secure.

[andrewf]

I learn something new everyday. I was not aware the extreme could do that.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3477

Looks like the only requirement is that it functions as your main internet sharing device.

[JeffM]

I would like to have it come up to a 1 page web page that gives some rules and such and when they click OK it allows them internet access like the hotels do. Are there AP's that have that built in?

[Tekguy]

I installed a Guestgate MK II for guest access http://www.guestgate.com/ works great haven't had to reboot it in 8 months since installation and all guest have to agree to the terms of use before that can access the internet and it creates a separate subnet so it isolates the church private network and the cost is very reasonable.